I am headed "home" for my first American Thanksgiving since before getting married and moving to the Great White North. Canadians are too busy refurbishing their igloos and cavorting with polar bears to celebrate Thanksgiving. Well, actually, none of that is true. We don't live in igloos. Global warming is pretty much taking care of the polar bears. And we celebrated Thanksgiving already.
So I'm just wondering what some of your favorite traditions, dishes, recipes, and memories are of this wonderful American holiday. Think back to the time when Thanksgiving was actually talked about in stores, people actually decorated for it in between Halloween and Christmas, and Black Friday didn't involve deaths from being trampled. Yeah, think back really, really far into the past and see what you find.
I'm curious.
To get you started, how will you be cooking your turkey this year? Brining first? Grilling? Baking? Frying? Buying it from someone? Having your mother do it for you?
As for me, I won't be having to deal with it this year. Which, for all of you who will be sharing the holiday with me, must be a relief. Since that means that there isn't a chance you might actually be eating the neck and other pieces I forget to take out. =)
Okay, eagerly awaiting your input........
9 comments:
One of my favorite Thanksgivings was the year we hosted some friends from Germany. We made rinderrouladen, gulaschsuppe, rotkraut, and spaetzle, - and a turkey breast and the "traditional stuff" for the less adventuresome Midwesterners who also joined us. Lots of cooking, lots of food, and lots of fun!
Our stuffing recipe (no dressing in this family!) has been handed down through the family for several generations. We are of German ancestry and so it has been named "German Stuffing" although I suspect there is nothing German about it! My mother would not give me the recipe until the first Thanksgiving I cooked the turkey and she made me promise 1) to never give it to anyone outside the family 2) not to give it to my children until they were in charge of cooking the Thanksgiving turkey. If we celebrate the day away from family, my children insist I still make turkey & stuffing at our house so they don't miss out on "German Stuffing"
At my house, we'd slow roast a whole turkey, stuffed to the gills (figuratively speaking of course!) with homemade boring old bread-based dressing with sage and other savory seasonings in it...it'd be started around 6am, and I'd baste it every time I walked by the oven...
We'd have mashed white potatoes, sweet potatoes roasted with sliced apples and cranberries, the dressing, gravy, Golden Cheddar Broccoli Bake, Green Bean casserole (with the onions on top), cranberry sauce, Rhodes dinner rolls...
Before we had that feast (keeping in mind that when my whole family is together there are 19 of us), we'd have a tray of crackers, cheese, veggies, and sweet breads. We'd have a lettuce/veggie salad, and of course, after the dinner was cleaned up, we'd have pumpkin pie with whipped cream, coffee, eggnog, milk, more coffee...
and around 6pm, we'd pull out the leftovers and start all over again!
Since we'll be at the in-laws, we'll have their traditions of:
turkey (just a breast as "no one likes dark meat)
rice
peanut dressing (yummy!)
gravy
peas
cranberry sauce
a bread of some sort
not-quite-real green bean casserole.
I love my MIL, but she's at the point where she prepares meals that are convenient for her, and not conducive to traditions being built.
I'll share the peanut dressing recipe in a separate comment.
PEANUT DRESSING
1 loaf of cheap white bread
1 fresh onion
8 oz of peanuts
4 celery stalks
salt
butter
hot water
You can use pre-roasted peanuts, or raw, your choice. Either way, dry roasted, lightly salted are the best way to go so you don't have to shell them first!
Roast the peanuts for about 10 minutes in a 400 degree F oven, and let cool completely.
Meanwhile, open the bread to let it get a little "stale". (depending on relative humidity, this may need to be done up to 3 days ahead).
After the peanuts are cooled, begin tearing the bread into small chunks in a large bowl. Grind the peanuts into the bread (I use my attachment for my Kitchen-Aid). Wash and trim the celery, and clean off the largest "strings", and grind.
Melt up to 1 stick of butter, add to mixture.
Peel, and finely chop the onion (you can use dried minced onion instead). Using your hands, mix and smash it until there is no white of the bread visible. Add hot water to achieve a sticky cookie dough texture.
You can either form loaves, or stuff the cavity of the bird.
Loaves bake at 350 for about an hour, tightly wrapped in foil and placed on a baking pan or dish to prevent burning.
Scoop or slice and enjoy with gravy and your bird!
The first time I heard it, I was grossed out, and the taste was not what I was expecting at all...mostly because my MIL hadn't heated it all the way, and it was COLD!
The next holiday meal, it went over much better!
We're heading down to my Mom's for T-day this year. She will most likely roast a real, whole turkey with stuffing, and she will have stuffing with mushrooms AND without for my brother. Homemade mashed potatoes and gravy, perhaps sauteed veggies, cranberry sauce (I will probably make either mandarin cranberry or brandied cranberry sauce, but we grew up on the canned)... she also makes pumpkin chiffon pie and apple crisp. I will also probably make the green bean casserole as the recipe on the can describes, adding in some fresh garlic and italian seasonings to make it better. She also always has lots of things for us to munch on- fresh veggie tray, nuts, cheese and crackers, pretzels/chips/dip, smoked oysters/cream cheese/crackers with wostershire (can't spell). Mom in law tends to make corn pudding, sweet potato casserole, but often cheats and gets a honeybaked turkey breast or ham... oh, she does scalloped potatoes or some other cheesy potato dish, too.
We're heading down to my Mom's for T-day this year. She will most likely roast a real, whole turkey with stuffing, and she will have stuffing with mushrooms AND without for my brother. Homemade mashed potatoes and gravy, perhaps sauteed veggies, cranberry sauce (I will probably make either mandarin cranberry or brandied cranberry sauce, but we grew up on the canned)... she also makes pumpkin chiffon pie and apple crisp. I will also probably make the green bean casserole as the recipe on the can describes, adding in some fresh garlic and italian seasonings to make it better. She also always has lots of things for us to munch on- fresh veggie tray, nuts, cheese and crackers, pretzels/chips/dip, smoked oysters/cream cheese/crackers with wostershire (can't spell). Mom in law tends to make corn pudding, sweet potato casserole, but often cheats and gets a honeybaked turkey breast or ham... oh, she does scalloped potatoes or some other cheesy potato dish, too.
We have started a new tradition, as of a couple years ago. Hubby and I spend the morning of Thanksgiving at a church downtown, serving lunch to people who do not have the means or family or whatever the reason...this is put on totally with donations, all the cooking is done by volunteers and the serving is also volunteers. there are usually around 1200 meals served. It is lots of fun, the people we serve are so appreciative and it just makes the rest of the day so nice. we then head to hubby's mom home where we will have ham..last year there was a small turkey, but most of his family is not turkey eaters..can you believe that?? anywho..it's a pitch in meal, so it varies from year to year...this year I am making a pumpkin truffle and some kind of appetizer. My boys go to their respective others everyother year, so I wont see them this year...but we will be with all of hubby's family, which is nice too...I do miss my mom's dressing and I may make some just for me! I loved our Thanksgivings when I was young...always so much good food and family..Apple Salad was a fav too...
This year we're headed to Mom and Dad's in Ilinois. We'll have turkey, noodles, mashed red potatoes and gravy, stuffing, green beans, baked bean casserole (which is really Jeff's family tradition, but that's his request, so it's also become ours too), a veggie tray, corn casserole, and who knows what else. I can't wait to be at my parents house and see my family together. Oh, and I also hope to see Inkling at sometime while we're home since she'll be home from Canada!
Inkling's family tradtions and mine are the same....being that we're cousins. It's not Thanksgiving without Grandma M&M's cranberry salad and Uncle Greenteeth's deep fried turkey.
I do have to mention that this year Inkling's dad was in charge of the roasted turkey and (much like his daughter) forgot to take out the neck & gizzard bag before it went in the oven! :) I love my family!
Post a Comment